Lifestyle inflation is more common than we like to admit.
When I made $30k per year I lived paycheck to paycheck.
When I made $50k per year I moved into a larger apartment and lived paycheck to paycheck.
When I made $80k per year I bought a new car and starting ordering food with UberEats, and well, you get the point.
I couldn’t easily find the exact formula for this study but it’s usually based on necessities. For example I checked a popular living wage calculator from MIT for the county I grew up in. Food was listed at $9 a day.
Living wage doesn't mean you'll die if you don't make that, it means you can't afford to support yourself and will require additional resources--often from government assistance.
We already have well established term for the concept that everyone understands. Do you want people to change their vocabulary because a word offends you?
Pretty sure that "living wage" means something very different today than 100 years ago, the term isn't the same if the definition changes.
"Decent wage" is a much better word since it shows how arbitrary it is. The headline should be "Fewer than 40% of New Yorkers earn a decent wage". That word makes sense, since they choose "living wage" to be the amount you require for a decent living, "decent wage" seems much more appropriate for the wage you need for a decent living.
“Needs” is the part that has changed. $2k a year in healthcare wasn’t likely included 100 years ago, but most people would consider that a need now.
When I checked the MIT living wage calculator, it listed $600 a month in rent. That’s just barley enough for 1 bedroom apartment with a roommate with 1 person sleeping in the living room.
100 years ago you could likely find some large dormitory style living in a death trap building with inadequate exits. But today short of illegally filling a single family unit with too many people a, single bedroom apartment with a roommate is pretty close to minimum shelter.
“Decent wage” to me implies more than the minimum possible shelter and $9 a day for food. But the point is living wage is an already established term of art that means basically the same thing it always has.
The multimillionaire in the mansion down the street lives paycheck to paycheck too - he's got a lot of homes and properties to maintain - but if he loses his job he has millions in assets to cushion him. It's not the same thing as someone making $30k living paycheck to paycheck.
You'd be surprised how many people don't in this situation. I've known people that earned $200k+ for years with essentially no assets because they spent it all.
What is advised in that situation? Homelessness? A lot of people found themselves dealing with that during the pandemic and they ate up all their savings and/or ran up debt just to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables. If I had found myself in that situation I'd probably have broken the lease and moved in with friends/family but not everyone has others who they can depend on to take care of them like that.